Mark My Words - commentary on news, politics, religion, philosophy, science and social issues

As the Hillary!Sillary!Shrillary! campaign and media lovefest begins, I have to wonder if anyone in the MSM will ask this question of the Senator who hopes to be President.

"Senator Clinton, should you be elected President and the only disqualification for Sandy Berger being on your staff was his theft of documents from the National Archives, which he as admitted to, would you ask him to be on your staff, if you knew he would accept?"

I'm not going to hold my breath getting a straight answer from her or that anyone in the MSM will ask the question until they get a definitive answer. However, it appears that the GOP actually has a pair starting to descend ever so slightly.

This from Fox News (emphasis in bold added):

The Justice Department should administer a polygraph test to former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger to find out what documents he took from the National Archives in 2002 and 2003, Rep. Tom Davis wrote in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dated Monday.
[...]
This may be the only way for anyone to know whether Mr. Berger denied the 9/11 commission and the public the complete account of the Clinton administration's actions or inactions during the lead up to the terrorist attacks on the United States," Davis wrote.
The letter was signed by all Republican members of Congress.

Anyone want to take bets on how long that bit of news will remain on the network news shows? You could probably measure it in nanoseconds.

Berger agreed to take a polygraph test as part of a plea deal reached in September 2005. As part of the guilty plea, he was also sentenced to 100 hours of community service, two years probation, three years of lost security clearance and a $50,000 fine plus court costs.

It's rather disturbing that the Justice Department has not availed itself of the opportunity to administer the test, per the agreement. Falling short of it's duty only encourages much speculation and leaves us justifiably worried about what has been destroyed and for what reasons. It should also be noted that his security clearance matter ends in 2008, in time for a Hillary! presidency, hence the importance of the question I framed earlier.

A report issued two weeks ago by Davis said commission members expressed grave concerns about whether they had received all the relevant information on the Clinton administration's anti-terror activities. Archivists said they will never know what Berger took because none of the pages Berger said he took were inventoried.

Keep in mind that last sentence as we look at the next paragraph.

At the time of the report, Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said the department "has no evidence that Sandy Berger's actions deprived the 9/11 commission of documents, and we stand by our investigation of this matter."

Well sure, if you don't know what you had in the first place, how can you have evidence that something was taken? Not a very secure position to be working from that. I have to wonder if Mr. Sierra was that uninformed at the time, or had to struggle to hide his smirk as he spoke those words.

This would be a laughable farce if it wasn't involving national security and information about what was or wasn't done by the previous administration regarding terrorism. At least the Republicans managed to sign a letter, hopefully the pressure on the Justice Department will continue until a serious investigation is launched into this matter.

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Filed under: NewsPolitics

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